Winterbirth (45 page)

They must have been a mighty people, greater in will and capacity than we are today, to have built so grandly in such places. Those who visit the ruins now - Kyrinin, or masterless men, or hunters from the valley of the Glas - come as scavengers, wanderers. They mistrust these abandoned places, and tell tales of ghosts and beasts that haunt them. Perhaps their unease has deeper roots, though. Perhaps they do not wish to be reminded of how far short they fall of those ancestors who lived in the light of the Gods.

from
Hallantyr's Sojourn

DUN AYGLL WAS a city of stone and marble memories. Lying at the edge of the high grasslands and moors in the north of Ayth-Haig lands, it had been the seat of the Aygll Kings from Abban, the first, to

Lerr, the last, the boy king murdered at In'Vay. Palaces still dotted the city - survivors of the fire and ruin that attended the Kingship's fall and of the Storm Years that followed it - but they had fallen into disrepair as the wealth and power of the Ayth Thanes who now ruled there had declined. The remembered splendour of those royal residences, implicit in the crumbling architecture and the mosaics and frescoes that could still be glimpsed behind overgrowing weeds, haunted the city and lent it an air of neglect and decay. Packs of wild dogs roamed the courtyards and gardens in which kings who ruled from the Vale of Tears to the Bay of Gold had spent their days. Beggars and thieves, the destitute and the desperate, were the only people who now found refuge beneath roofs that had echoed long ago to the pomp of ceremony.

Only one palace remained intact: a long, low fortified residence on the town's northern edge where the Thane Ranal oc Ayth-Haig lived in drink-soaked seclusion. Its proper name was the Bann Ilin; many called it the Sot's Palace. The Ayth Blood had fallen far from its early days of influence and grandeur. A succession of dissolute and spendthrift leaders had reduced it to its current state of fawning obedience to the Haig Thanes. Even Ranal's authority over his own lands was tenuous. Whether it was the lords in Asger Tan and Ist Norr on the distant coast, the bandit settlements and goldpanners' camps in the denuded Far Dyne Hills or the companies of Haig soldiers who patrolled the great highways of his territory, there were many within his domain whose loyalty to him was notional at best.

Taim Narran dar Lannis-Haig rode into this fading city at the head of a column of exhausted men. His company was less than it had been. The weakest of his band had been left in Vaymouth, under the watchful eye of one of the few merchants in the city whose roots lay in the Glas valley. No more had died on the road west along the Nar Vay coastline and up through Dramain to Dun Aygll, but the journey had taken its toll. Their food was all but gone and they lived on what they could buy or barter from farmers and traders along the way. Taim had been glad to leave Haig lands behind, and even Dun Aygll, with its grim, dank feel, was a pleasing sight. The Ayth-Haig Blood was little more friendly to his own than Haig itself, but their arrival here meant they were nearing more welcoming regions: a few days further and they would reach Kilvale, on the southern border of Kilkry-Haig. There at last they could be certain of finding true allies.

Rest must come first, though. For three centuries or more a great horse market had been held each year in Dun Aygll. Its stables and sheds lay empty for much of the time, and they provided a temporary home for warriors and animals alike once Taim had agreed a price with the market warden, a minor official of the Ironworkers' Craft. Only two of the Crafts - the Ironworkers and the Woollers - kept their Senior Houses in Dun Aygll; over the years the rest had migrated first to Kolkyre, when Kilkry was supreme amongst the Bloods, then to Vaymouth when Haig took on the mantle. The Crafts always flocked to power, like buzzards shadowing a retreating army. The two that remained in Dun Aygll were, at least as much as the Thane, the masters of the city. It was to the Crafthouse of the Woollers that Taim went after his men had been settled. His father had been a member, and that, he thought, was enough to mean that the Woollers' House might be a source of the information he craved.

The building was a grand one, set back from the street behind a columned entryway. A beggar, her face mauled by disease - the King's Rot that some held to be a curse bequeathed to his subjects by the last Aygll monarch as he died — held a pleading hand out towards Taim from her station on the steps.

Taim looked up at the building's façade. It must once have been bright with a rainbow of colours, for the minute tiles of a huge mosaic pattern curved and swept across the stonework. Their hues now gave only a muted hint of their former glory. Carved faces gazed down upon him as he passed between the columns and through the open doorway. There was a short passageway, and then a gate of wrought iron blocked his path. Beyond it, he could see a garden laid out around a crumbling fountain.

A sceptical guard gave him admittance and told him to wait while someone was summoned. The official too, when he came, was less than welcoming; only after a show of reluctance did he go to find a more senior officer for Taim to talk to.

Taim sat on a pitted stone bench beside the fountain, gazing at the thin stream of water that flowed from the mouth of a twisting fish. The skill of the mason who had carved the fountain had been overwhelmed by time. The fish was pitted and flaking. Looking around, Taim could see that the gardens were still cared for, but winter had robbed them of beauty. Bare earth, browned stems, piles of fallen leaves and a scattering of scrawny evergreen shrubs were all that could be seen. The gardens filled the centre of a great quadrangle, around which a porticoed walkway ran. There was no sign of life. The place had a somnolent feel.

In the end, they sent the Craftmaster's Secretary to talk with him. He was a portly, round-faced man from Drandar, who appeared to have a stock of genuine goodwill for Lannis-Haig. He said he had visited Anduran several times.

'Your Thane, all of your Thanes, have been good friends to our Craft in the Glas valley.'

'The wooller's trade is a part of my Blood's life. It has always been so.'

'These are sorry times for us all,' murmured the Secretary. 'No good can come of such disruption.'

'Do you know anything of what has happened? There was little word on the road from Vaymouth.'

The Secretary grew uneasy. He pursed his lips and brushed dust from the surface of the bench. 'It is not usual for word gathered through Craft channels to be shared too widely,' he said, but hastily continued when he saw disappointment in Taim's face, 'yet your father was, as you say, a member, and you could no doubt get the same information elsewhere. We know nothing that is not known outside these walls, I think.'

'I would be grateful for any news,' said Taim.

'Of course, of course. That is understandable. Regretfully, I do not think I can tell you anything that will ease your worries. The last word we had was of a battle, somewhere between Anduran and Glasbridge.

Gerain nan Kilkry-Haig fell there, and many others. The Black Road was victorious. Anduran is besieged.'

Taim's shoulders slumped a fraction. 'Gerain's death is ill tidings. He was a good man; his loss will break his father's heart. How can all this have happened, so quickly? Anduran besieged?'

The Secretary gave a nervous shrug. 'It is difficult to sieve fact from rumour. There are many wild tales coming out of your lands. Tales of wild men from beyond the Tan Dihrin who eat human flesh, tales of a Kyrinin army pillaging the valley. I am told, though it stretches belief, that woodwights and Inkallim together assaulted Kolglas. A White Owl raiding party attacked the town while the ravens slipped into the castle.'

Taim Narran looked bleakly down at his hands. He should be there, at Croesan's side.

'I am sorry,' said the Secretary. 'You know how such times breed fear and fancy. Perhaps things are not as grave as they appear.'

'Even if the tales are only halfway to truth . . .' Taim did not finish the thought. There was, in the end, little to say. The Craftsman cleared his throat. He shifted a fraction closer to Taim.

'Word has been sent out from Vaymouth, summoning new armies. There will be gatherings here, and in Drandar. The greater strength must triumph in the end, and that belongs to Haig, not Gyre.'

'My home will be a wasteland by then. If the High Thane had stood shoulder to shoulder with my Blood, and with Kilkry-Haig, from the start instead of caring only for the southward spread of his shadow, this would not have happened.'

He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The Crafts were greater powers here than in his own lands, more woven into the fabric of rule and influence. Although the Woollers were not known as great friends of the Haig Blood, it was still rash to speak ill of the Thane of Thanes without knowing when and to whom the words might be repeated.

The Secretary looked at Taim with an indecipherable expression on his face.

'Is it true,' he asked softly, 'that the High Thane had Igryn blinded?'

'It's true. The Mercy of Kings.'

The Secretary nodded slowly. After a few moments' thought he drew a deep breath.

'Gryvan oc Haig stands shoulder to shoulder with none save the Shadowhand. Those two make for poor friends in times such as these. Armies have been summoned, yet there are no great companies on the road. Why is that, do you think? I heard tell of a man - a captain of Haig archers — whose tongue ran free in a tavern near here. He claimed there will be no move north until your Blood is ruined. There will be no more Lannis Thanes in the Glas valley, he said.' The Secretary shook himself and glanced around.

'Mere rumour, I am sure, but not one you heard in these precincts.'

'No,' murmured Taim.

'I should return to my business. I have a meeting with the master of our almshouse. The work of the Craft never ceases.' 'No,' said Taim again. 'Thank you. I am grateful.'

Taim walked back through the streets of Dun Aygll, lost in thought. When he marched south all those months ago, he had promised his wife he would return to her. Now he was doing so, but perhaps too late for her; for all of them. He feared that he was taking his men back to die upon the fields of the Glas valley. It was, at least, a more fitting place to find the Sleeping Dark than the mountains of Dargannan-Haig where they had left so many of their comrades, and the Bloods of the Black Road were a foe worth the sacrifice. But if there was truth in the words of the Craft Secretary - and they were of a piece with Taim's instinct - there must be, somehow, a reckoning with the Haig Blood too. Taim had the clear sense that whatever happened in the weeks and months to come, he would never again know peace or rest. What time was left to him would be bloody.

THE
DYN HANE
swallowed them. As the willows crowded in, daylight was replaced by gloom and shadow. Orisian struggled on, lost in a daze of disbelief. He wanted to cry out, to stop them and turn them back. This was all wrong. It was not supposed to be like this. But Rothe was close on his heels, and they could not stop. And it was, after all, like this.

Thin branches lashed at his face. The trees pressed close. There was no path through this place of the dead. Orisian felt something on his cheek and flicked at what he thought must be an insect, only to find that it was a tear.

They came abruptly out from amongst the trees. A sheer rock face rose before them. Close by, Sarn's Leap plummeted from the heights into a churning pool, throwing out a mist of spray. Orisian looked up, and felt the cold touch of a thousand water droplets on his skin.

'We should go back,' he whispered. Only Rothe heard him above the sound of the waterfall.

'It was a grave wound, Orisian. There was nothing we could do. Perhaps they will tend to him.'

Orisian stared at the cliff. It was a seamed and cracked wall of stone. Mosses and ferns clustered by the cascade, immersed in its saturated breath. Elsewhere, the cliff was naked of life. Boulders were jumbled at its foot.

Ess'yr had started to climb, following a crevice that angled up beside the falls. Varryn went after, gesturing for the humans to follow.

Orisian and Anyara hesitated, but Rothe said softly, 'We must go,' he said. 'We cannot go back now.

We've no choice but to trust them in this.'

In the moment his foot left the earth, Orisian felt himself to be irretrievably alone. He was as small as a beetle scaling the wall of a tower. His mind was filled by the texture of the rock beneath his fingertips and by the howl of Sarn's Leap. To fall would be nothing; the world had already receded from him. There were surfaces only - the thin skin of rock to which he clung, the transparent roof of the sky above — and nothing at all beyond them, save a void. He could hear its inchoate voice inside his head. Perhaps it was the thunder of the falls, perhaps not.

The crevice petered out. He looked up, and saw Varryn and Ess'yr climbing on above him. He followed, for little more reason than that his body kept moving. The Kyrinin reached a perilously thin ledge that fractured the cliff face. As Orisian hauled himself on to it, they were shuffling themselves sideways, drawing ever closer to the plummeting mass of water. The mist of the falls swirled about them and they disappeared from sight. He stood up to go after them and for the first time looked over his shoulder. He saw the canopy of the
dyn bane
stretching out down the gorge. The waterfall cast clouds of vapour over the treetops, glistening in the autumnal sun. His body swayed as the space sucked at his back. He edged along in the footsteps of the Kyrinin.

Ess'yr and Varryn had entered a narrow, vertical fissure in the rock, half again as high as a man.

The Snow River was crashing down through the air within an arm's length.

'Come,' a voice beckoned from within, and Orisian squeezed through into the cliff face.

The Kyrinin were waiting inside. In the half-light, Orisian found a tight, oppressive chamber. A flight of steps vanished up into the mountain. A malign breath seemed to descend out of the gullet of the stairway.